RIGHTS-LABOUR: More Countries Pledge to Free Trapped Children

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

MEXICO CITY, Jun 9 2000 (IPS) - The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is ecstaticnever before has a global labour convention received so many ratifications in one year.

The convention to protect children from “the worst forms of child labour” has received 27 ratifications over the past year, and the ILO expects 12 more before the International Labour Conference currently underway in Geneva ends on Jun. 15.

The countries who have put their weight behind this convention include Belize, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and the United States, from the Americas; Malawi, Ghana and South Africa, from Africa; Jordan and Qatar, from the Middle East; and Finland, Ireland and Britain, from Europe.

For Juan Somavia, the director-general of the ILO, the nods of approval are a reason to celebrate. They reflect the prevailing spirit among ILO member states to quicken the global effort to protect children forced into the worst forms of child labour.

“(This) gives us hope that the elimination of this scourge will become a reality for millions of children who face exploitation today,” Somavia said this week at the Geneva gathering, which has attracted close to 3,000 participants, including labour ministers and leaders of workers’ and employers’ organisations from most of the ILO’s 175 members states.

This international agreement, known as the ILO Convention No. 182, considers the worst forms of child labour to include work that harms the health, morals or psychological wellbeing of children and that is “likely to severely impede a child’s normal growth into adulthood.”

And listed in the convention for elimination are the following:

– All forms of slavery or practices similar to it such as the sale and trafficking of children.

– Debt bondage, serfdom and compulsory labour.

– Forced recruitment of children for use in armed conflicts.

– Use of children for prostitution or pornographic performances.

– Procuring a child for illicit activities such as for producing or trafficking in drugs.

– Work which is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.

Currently, “some 250 million children between the ages of five and 14 are working in developing countries – 120 million full- time, 130 million part-time,” says the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), a department of the ILO.

IPEC research has pointed out that some 61 percent of the total child labour force, which adds up to about 153 million, is found in Asia, while 32 percent, or 80 million, is in Africa and seven percent, or 17.5 million, lives in Latin America.

Furthermore, recent evidence has also implicated other countries, too. “Child labour also exists in many industrialised countries and is emerging in East Europe and Asian countries which are in transition to a market economy,” IPEC asserts.

But reducing such child abuse will also mean addressing another factor – the likelihood of more children being forced into the worst forms of labour due to the economic impact of HIV-AIDS (Human Immunodeficiency Virus- Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome).

In a report released at this week’s conference, “HIV-AIDS: A threat to decent work, productivity and development,” the ILO warned that “HIV-AIDS increases child labour.”

As a result of this killer disease, the report argues, children will be forced to work because of the tremendous pressure on households and families. Consequently, it will be difficult for them to attend schools and they will not “receive proper care and guidance and easily fall victim to all kinds of exploitation.”

The report estimates that the rapid pace at which HIV-AIDS is ravaging communities will lead to “a severe decline in the size and quality of the workforce in a number of countries over the next 20 years.”

And to drive home this point it stated that in 15 countries across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean there will be about 24 million fewer workers in the year 2020 as a result of AIDS.

According to this report, the first study of its kind conducted by the ILO, there were close to 33.6 million people living with HIV by the end of 1999, of whom 32.4 million are in their most productive years – between the ages of 15 and 49. Some 1.2 million are children aged 15 years and younger.

“Around half of all people with HIV become infected before the age of 25 and die approximately 10 years later,” the report observes.

Frank Hegemann agrees with the warnings sounded in the report regards the possible increase of child labour due to HIV-AIDS. “With the loss or sickness of the parent, a child is often forced to become the head of a household, (and) he or she has to quickly find a way to provide for needy siblings,” said Hagemann, a policy analyst at IPEC.

Prevailing trends have revealed, moreover, that many children “end up being forced into the worst forms of child labour, including prostitution and hazardous types of work.”

In addition, observes Hagemann, a number of AIDS orphans have been driven into the ranks of the armed forces and paramilitary groups in countries involved in armed conflict.

What is required, says Peter Piot, is for all ILO programmes to take into account the AIDS factor and its impact on labour.

The ILO’s international effort to eliminate child labour has “a major role to play to help mitigate this tragic consequence of AIDS,” added Piot, the executive director of the United Nations department for AIDS (UNAIDS), during his address to the labour conference.

And among those in urgent need of such protection are the children orphaned by AIDS, stressed Piot, who estimated that the world will have 42 million AIDS orphans by 2010, up from the current 12 million.